r. _tanaisie_, from Greco-Lat.
_athanasia_, immortality. We may compare the learned _saxifrage_,
stone-breaker, of which the Spanish doublet is _sassafras_. The German
name is _Steinbrech_.

There must have been a time when a simple instinct for poetry was
possessed by all nations, as it still is by uncivilised races and
children. Among European nations this instinct appears to be dead for
ever. We can name neither a mountain nor a flower. Our Mount Costigan,
Mount Perry, Mount William cut a sorry figure beside the peaks of the
Bernese Oberland, the Monk, the Maiden, the Storm Pike, the Dark Eagle
Pike.[24] Occasionally a race which is accidentally brought into closer
contact with nature may have a happy inspiration, such as the
_Drakensberg_ (dragon's mountain) or _Weenen_[25] (weeping) of the old
_voortrekkers_. But the Cliff of the Falling Flowers, the name of a
precipice over which the Korean queens cast themselves to escape
dishonour, represents an imaginative realm which is closed to us.[26]
The botanist who describes a new flower hastens to join the company of
Messrs _Dahl_, _Fuchs_, _Lobel_, _Magnol_ and _Wistar_, while fresh
varieties are used to immortalise a florist and his family.

[Page Heading: NAMES OF FRUITS]

The names of fruits, perhaps because they lend themselves less easily to
imaginative treatment, are even duller than modern names of flowers. The
only English names are the _apple_ and the _berry_. New fruits either
retained their foreign names (_cherry_, _peach_, _pear_, _quince_) or
were violently converted into _apples_ or _berries_, usually the former.
This practice is common to the European languages, the _apple_ being
regarded as the typical fruit. Thus the orange is usually called in
North Germany _Apfelsine_, apple of China, with which we may compare our
"China orange." In South Germany it was called _Pomeranze_ (now used
especially of the Seville orange), from Ital. _pomo_, apple, _arancia_,
orange. Fr. _orange_ is folk-etymology (_or_, gold) for _*arange_, from
Arab. _narandj_, whence Span. _naranja_. _Melon_ is simply the Greek for
"apple," and has also given us _marmalade_, which comes, through French,
from Port. _marmelada_, quince jam, a derivative of Greco-Lat.
_melimelum_, quince, lit. honey-apple. _Pine-apple_ meant "fir-cone" as
late as the 17th century, as Fr. _pomme de pin_ still does.[27] The
fruit was named from its shape, which closely resembles that of a
fir-cone. _Pomegr